1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to gates and barriers, and more particularly to retrofitting train-station platforms with two-way operable gates for handicapped people in wheelchairs that cannot pass through the regular turnstiles.
2. Description of Related Art
Some modern train and rail stations use automated ticketing and turnstiles. For example, the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) sells magnetic-coded paper tickets out of wall-mounted machines and the passengers use the tickets in a separate turnstile. The tickets are inserted into the entering and exiting turnstiles at the start and end of the trip, and computers automatically deduct the correct fare and open the air-operated gate.
Such turnstile openings are very narrow and impossible for handicapped people to negotiate. So the BART stations were originally fitted with spring-loaded fence gates, but these only swung-open in one direction. The gates proved very hard to open if one was in a wheelchair on the xe2x80x9cwrongxe2x80x9d side of the gate.
Unfortunately, the handicapped fence-gates originally installed by BART had their operating mechanisms completely buried in the floor. And many of the floors were poured-concrete. This makes adjusting the mechanisms and certainly replacing them a very expensive, labor-intensive job.
Jackson Corporation (Los Angeles, Calif.) has a line of commercial door control products that include overhead concealed closers, surface mounted closers, floor closers, and pivots. Conventional door closers are not concealed within the door panel itself, but rather in the floor below or the door jamb above. For example, a prior art door closer is described by Peter Brown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,291,630, issued Mar. 8, 1994. The only placement suggested for it is to embed it in the floor.
An object of the present invention is to provide a two-way opening fence gate.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a fence gate that can be operated by people restricted to wheelchairs.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a gate opening device that can be retrofitted to gates with buried-in-the-floor mechanisms.
Briefly, a gate embodiment of the present invention comprises a door panel that forces itself normally closed, but can be pushed open from either side. A closing mechanism is fully contained within a cap rail along to top edge of the door and operates in either direction to close the gate slowly after it has been opened. Fixed axles enter the gate panel from above and below on the pivoting side. The closing mechanism is geared to at least one of these fixed axles to allow the gate to be opened easily and to self-close over a period of time. Springs are used in opposition to hydraulic dampers such that the springs close the gate and the dampers delay the closing.
An advantage of the present invention is a gate is provided that can be pushed open from either side.
Another advantage of the present invention is that a gate is provided that can be safely and conveniently operated by people in wheelchairs.
A still further advantage of the present invention is that a gate opening device is provided that can be used to retrofit other types at reduced cost.